Mount Royal turns 150
Leisure activities History Mount Royal, Outremont and Westmount
Montréal’s beloved and iconic Mount Royal Park turns 150 on May 24, the day it was founded in 1876. There will be many events to mark its 150th anniversary throughout 2026.
What is Mount Royal?
Known to locals as “the mountain,” Mount Royal was named by French explorer Jacques Cartier in 1535. Then in the 18th century Mount Royal inspired the renaming of Ville-Marie to Montréal.
Today, Mount Royal – located in located in the heart of the city – is home to Montréal’s famed Mount Royal Cross; Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal and its great dome; the magnificent 200-hectare Mount Royal Park; two world-renowned universities, McGill University and the Université de Montréal; and four cemeteries.
Designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (who also designed New York’s Central Park), Mount Royal Park is a 10 square-kilometre heritage site that was inaugurated on May 24, 1876.
History of Mount Royal
Shaped by retreating glaciers around 3000 B.C., the mountain is really a cluster of three hills located in the centre of the Island of Montréal. Its highest peak reaches an elevation of nearly 233 metres (764 feet) above sea level.
- The mountain was home to Indigenous peoples thousands of years ago.
- It was named Mount Royal by Jacques Cartier in 1535.
- Founder of Montréal Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, erected the first Mount Royal Cross atop Mount Royal on January 6, 1643, to thank God for sparing the small French colony (then called Ville-Marie) from rising flood waters caused by a winter thaw.
- McGill University was established on Mount Royal in 1821.
- Mount Royal Cemetery opened in 1852. It is bordered by the largest cemetery in Canada, the Catholic Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetary, established in 1854 and inspired by the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris; as well as by the Shearith Israel Cemetery (founded in 1854) and the Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery (1863) on the northern slope of Mount Royal where poet, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Montréal icon Leonard Cohen is buried.
- Mount Royal Park was inaugurated on May 24, 1876.
- The current steel Mount Royal Cross was erected in 1924 by the Société St-Jean Baptiste and has become one of Montréal’s most iconic landmarks. A LED lighting system was installed in 2009 so that the cross can light up in any colour.
- Construction began on Montréal’s famed Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal in 1924.
- The Université de Montréal inaugurated its new campus on the mountain in 1943.
- In 2005, the Government of Québec adopted a decree creating the Mont Royal Historic and Natural District. The territory is recognized as a heritage site by the Government of Québec.
- The City of Montréal’s master plan states that building heights must be kept below 232.5 metres above sea level to preserve the prominence of Mount Royal.
Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal
Montréal’s famed Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal located on the northwest slope of Mount Royal is filled with hundreds of pairs of crutches from pilgrims healed by Saint André of Montréal, known locally as Brother André, who began construction of this national shrine in 1924 to honour Saint Joseph, the foster father of Jesus.
- Known as the Miracle Man of Montréal, Saint André is credited with thousands of miraculous healings. He was beatified in 1982 and canonized in 2010. His remains lie inside the Oratory.
- More than 2 million people visit the Oratory and its museum each year.
- With its massive dome, the Oratory is the highest point in Montréal and the largest shrine dedicated to Saint Joseph in the world.
- Designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2004.
Year-round activities on Mount Royal
Mount Royal Park was given its modern look by landscaper Frederick Law Olmsted. His ambitious landscaping project gave the mountain its central walkway, known today as the Olmsted Trail, its sprawling mountain pasture, Beaver Lake, as well as its curated vegetation and rich network of trails, rest stops and viewpoints.
- The lookout at the Kondiaronk Belvedere in front of the Mount Royal Chalet offers spectacular views of downtown to the St. Lawrence River.
- The Camillien-Houde lookout on Camillien-Houde Boulevard on the northeast side offers views of the Plateau Mont-Royal and eastward past Montréal Olympic Park and Olympic Stadium.
- And there are various lookouts you can reach when you walk to the very top to the famous Mount Royal Cross.
On Sundays, the summertime Tam Tams on the east side of the park at the Sir George-Étienne-Cartier monument on Parc Avenue is very popular.
Click here for a full run-down of year-round activities at Mount Royal Park.
Mount Royal 150th anniversary events
There are many events celebrating the 150th anniversary of Mount Royal Park.
Montréal landscape architect Daniel Chartier – who served as a landscape architect for the City of Montréal for 37 years (1977–2014), designing many public places and parks – will explore the origins of Olmsted’s vision for the mountain, tracing the ideas and design principles that shaped one of North America’s most beloved urban parks, in a June 9 webinar Olmsted’s Mount Royal: An Icon for 150 Years.
Additional commemorative events will be announced soon.
Richard Burnett
Richard “Bugs” Burnett is a Canadian freelance writer, editor, journalist, blogger and columnist for alt-weeklies, mainstream and LGBTQ+ publications. Bugs also knows Montréal like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter.